Hi, everybody.
last Thursday I had my Bonsai friend Dirk Mundorf from Germany over for our now traditional annual Bonsai fun day! When he arrived at 10 in the morning after his 3,5 hours drive we had a quick strong coffee and then we immediately started to work on the big Juniper he brought along with him. A few years ago we gave this tree it’s first styling in my garden and now it was time to give it it’s follow up styling. First, as always, the trunk and branches were cleaned with the help of steal and copper wire brushes. As soon as we started, the sun started shinning and it would do so all day long! 🙂
Below: Green arrows point to the new edge off the live line. Everything on the right of these arrows has died back.
Below: Carefully removing the dead bark with a copper brush.
Below: All the dead bark removed right up to the new live vain.
Below: All deadwood is carefully burned with a blowtorch to make it look more weathered and old.
Below: While Dirk torched the place I was wiring the safe side of the tree! 🙂 The deadwood was not treated with Lime Sulphur, that will be donat Dirk’s home, we did not want to stink up his car! 4 hours in a car with the smell of fresh Lime Sulphur up your nose is too much for civilized people! 🙂
Below: By the time it was dinner time, which was at 7 o’clock, we were still not finished wiring! That was 6 hours of strait wiring! So we enjoyed a spicy Suriname diner and some more coffee and then brought the tree inside for some more styling.
Below: The whole top section was not wired yet, but we wanted to bring the wired section into place anyhow!
Below: Slowly bringing all the wired branches into place.
Below: Even though the whole top section is not wired and therefore can not be placed into its wanted position, it still looks pretty good already! I am sure that Dirk will wire the rest of the tree in the next couple of day’s to bring out the best out off that top!
Dirk left close to 10 in the evening with a nice and almost finished good looking Bonsai and a big smile on his face! Next Spring we will meet again in my garden for another “Bonsai Fun Day” with lots of coffee! I can’t wait to work with my friend Dirk again!
Hope you enjoyed this little story?!
Cheers,
Hans van Meer.
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“I FLY SO HIGH AND FALL SO LOW”
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